Pub. 11 2020 Issue 3

Pub. 11 2020 I Issue 3 Fall 13 West Virginia Banker Lester Murray joined The Baker Group in 1986 and is an associate partner within the firm’s Financial Strategies Group. He helps community financial institutions develop and implement investment and interest rate risk management strategies. Before joining The Baker Group, he worked at two broker/ dealer banks in Oklahoma City and was also an assistant national bank examiner. A graduate of Oklahoma State University, he holds Bachelor of Science degrees in finance and economics. Contact: 800-937-2257, lester@GoBaker.com . its vulnerability to fraud and manipulation, coupled with a dwindling sample size that poorly reflected market condi- tions, had to go, and pretty soon, it will be gone. Thankfully, the Alternative Reference Rate Committee (ARRC), a brainchild of the Federal Reserve, has come up with a better idea based on actual transactions in the vast, Treasury-collateralized repo market. SOFR is easy to track, impossible to fudge, and moves with the market. What’s not to love? Well, for one thing, SOFR is an overnight rate, whereas LIBOR comes with terms as short as a day and as long as a year. To come up with term rates, some type of prior-period compounding will likely be used, but the specific methodol- ogy is still uncertain. Another incongruity between the two rates is that SOFR reflects financing transactions that are free of credit risk, whereas LIBOR has always been a prod- uct of unsecured lending. Some type of spread adjustment to account for that difference will have to be added, but how and how much are still open-ended questions. Uncertain Life Span Some are questioning the assumption that LIBOR will even make it to the end of next year. That’s not a given. If the ever-dwindling number of reporting banks, currently somewhere between 11 and 16, falls below four, that could trigger an early end to LIBOR. Or, in these tumultuous times, a regulatory determination to prematurely end the Reach your customers with print. To advertise in this magazine, contact us today. 727.475.9827 | 855.747.4003 kris@thenewslinkgroup.com Magazines are the perfect tool to entice and hold your members’ attention. use of LIBOR because it fails to reflect market conditions could also lead to an early demise. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will no longer be buying ARMs tied to LIBOR after the end of this year, but they will begin accepting SOFR-based ARMs before this year is out. According to John Williams, president of the New York Fed, the use of LIBOR in loan agreements should have stopped by now, and lenders are encouraged to develop the fallback language for LIBOR referenced loans that will specify the replacement rate (SOFR) upon LIBOR’s cessation. For com- munity bankers, communication with customers is key, and the earlier that process is started, the more smoothly the rate transition is likely to go, especially if LIBOR goes away sooner than expected. For more information about the transition, a link to the ARRC’s website is provided below. (https://www.gobaker.com/wp-content/uploads/articles/ TBG-B0081-ARRC-Best-Practices.pdf) 